


The World Shook I

by lastgem



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Amputation, Amputee, Other, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-11-08 23:55:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11092572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastgem/pseuds/lastgem
Summary: Peridot lands into some dire trouble, at least there’s no place like home!





	The World Shook I

The green gem trudges forward, winding herself on the stand “YOU’LL REGRET THIS YOU TRAITORS.” angry, bitter tears drip down her face as the screen vanishes. Peridot knows she’s doomed, the heavy weight that had been in her stomach has spread to her chest. She slides down, clinging to the pedestal with all her strength. Her mind has been wedded to the Kindergarten's computer, she can feel every nerve in her body sting as the “Crystal Gems” of Earth begin to destroy part of her heart.

Throughout the galaxy her fellow gems are feeling the same pain she is, hundreds, if not thousands of gems are mentally linked to the Earth’s system. Peridot can barely think under the thundering roar of weight pressing down against her skin, she has no excuse for her failure. Her teeth grind together as the gravity inside of her ship begins to increase tenfold. The chamber above her control room has a leak, tiny fissures are forming along the surface of her ship as the destruction echos through their system. She can feel the toxic molecules clinging to the back of her teeth, sour and tart. The situation is quickly growing critical, the hull is damaged and her droids are slipping out of the hole in the hull, escaping into the nearby meteor field.

Everything turns into a whirlwind of shrapnel against her face and eyes as the ship caves in. Peridot recognizes her own inner space as she enters her gem. She holds herself and waits for her body to regenerate.

She wakes up to the outer edge of the asteroid belt. The crystallized remains of several drones are clutched around her body, forming a protective shield. It’s so cold that it makes her joints hurt and her eyes tear up. Ice jabs at her eyes and then she sees the other ship. Peridot cannot identify the make or model. There’s no escaping the massive jaws that close around her and the clump of broken drones.

Darkness fills Peridot’s world, which becomes a tiny space between two flat walls. The jaws slowly grind up the material sitting inside, gravity pulling the objects down the incline. Peridot shuffles towards the end and shouts and screams for them to stop. Whoever’s operating the craft doesn’t hear her.

The shards clink loudly, the crystal legs break into tiny pieces. Peridot’s fingers find traction on the walls but she still slides down slowly. The green gem holds out a hand and wedges herself in place, the force makes her shoulder ache but it’s safe. The mass below is a series of interlocking blades sliding through and crushing the broken droids into pieces small enough to be sucked down through a grate.

Peridot thinks for a second before she pushes a large pile of the broken droids down into the blades. The blades halt, a screeching noise issuing from them as they can’t do their job. The screeching starts to turn into a guttural clunk before the machinery stops outright. Beyond the blades, the grate is open to the other room.

A bead of sweat drips down Peridot’s face as she shuffles in the pile of broken crystal and ichor. Not an inch stands between her and a blade. The tops of her thighs and chest get scraped by the sharpness. Her pale blue blood wells from the small wounds. The other side of the ship is empty, the room has a few stray particles of droid shards on it.

The lights flicker on as she puts her leg over the grate and steps onto the ship proper. Gems don’t need air and don’t need gravity on their ships. Little drops of her blood ooze out and float around the ship. Peridot waves the drops away as she approaches the doorway to the control room. She hasn’t seen another gem in-person in thousands of years, the fear builds until she finally reaches out to touch the control panel.

Air hisses out, a small buildup inside of the main cabin. The room is tiny, and a single crystal hums in the flat, raised surface of the controls. Peridot feels relief at the sight. The drone will return to whatever planet it’s been deployed to on it’s own. She slides down a wall and sits on the floor. The gems must think she’s dead, or floating in space. If she returns there will be punishment for the loss of the Earth equipment.

Earth’s Kindergarten was destroyed. The voice is clinical and sharp, nearly identical to her own. It screams and whines, the velocity rising as the noise climbs into higher reaches. The crystal on the controls flushes a brilliant red as the data soaks into it. Her fingers curl around her legs as she sits on the floor, staring at the wall as the automated ship finishes it’s job.

It takes several months for the ship to head back to it’s origin. Peridot waits in the small craft, knowing the hopelessness of her situation will only grow with time. The planets they pass are burnt out husks, each giant ringed by a small belt of orbiting debris. Astoundingly the silence doesn’t bother her so badly as the sight of destroyed droids do.

Peridot is trapped in her thoughts when the ship begins to shake from the force of the planet’s gravity tugging on the craft. The green gem only notices when everything rattles and the world turns and tilts. The entry is rough, the unmanned craft battered by the fiery layer of ozone protecting the beautiful cloud filled world below.

She’s rolled around, and around. Peridot loses consciousness when a jerk sends her skull colliding into the control crystal.

A harsh light fills her sight as she pulls her body back together. Several soft beeps fill the air as the collection of specialized droids drifts away from the alien gem. She stands up slowly, eyes adjusting to the light before she sees them.

Peridot can’t form words, she’s so startled by the sight of another being. The lavender and black gem says nothing, does nothing but summon her weapon. Peridot readies herself, gem glowing to summon her own. But a heavy blow hits her from behind before she can do so, a blade embedding itself deeply into her spine. She grimaces for a moment, before her form gives and poofs away in a cloud of pale green smoke.

The light is harsher this time, she can feel that there’s an atmosphere on this planet. A steady hum of instructions is being chanted. Peridot cannot move. A pair of thin limbs appear in front of her, the room is blindingly white. A crystal weight is set on her legs, pinning her to the wall.

A sharp, yellow gem reads over her screen. She raises a hand to Peridot, “Your appointment is in ten weeks.” her fingers close together and the drones are crawling up Peridot’s body.

The wall sinks in and she can feel them working against the snug rings fit against her flesh. Her fingers have been stolen away, the feeling of them is still there. She thrashes in the restraints as the correct droid finally unlatches from a bigger one. It wedges a thin crystal limb between the seams of her arm casings and gives a violent wiggle.

The ordeal is terrifying, but Peridot has withstood much worse during her short existence. Without her prosthetic limbs she’s a footless, handless gem. Each stump is covered in a rounded crystal cap, spines embedded deeply in her flesh. The wall sinks in and lets her rest in a frame cut just the correct size for her body, a strap holds down her midsection and the other restraints retreat into the walls.

The time she spends against the wall is the most grueling experience of her life. Gems live for thousands upon thousands of years undisturbed. Peridot cannot move. Time scrapes by, only punctuated by the occasional sound of another prisoner being added to a chamber.

She’s forgotten how long it has been when they come for her. The droid and the gem are expressionless as they remove her. Peridot has to be peeled off of the smooth surface. The daze she’s entered breaks as the gem grabs her throat and drags her to her appointment. Suffocation is impossible for a gem to experience, but the clutching fingers at her throat are bruising her skin.

The trial is before a massive screen that lists off her failures and offenses. The room is lined with crystals in every shape, size and color. The floor is a blinding, brilliant white that hurts her deprived eyes as they morph and adapt to the radiation.

Peridot hangs her head as the crystals buzz and murmur, the stale air filtering in and out of their decrepit mouths, scenting the air. It feels unreal, the heat and the noise level rises steadily as they discuss the best punishment for her. She lifts her head, it feels heavy and she hasn’t bothered replacing the visor they’d stolen.

She’s alone in the pit, the light glaring down against her skin. Her arms feel bruised, her fingers don’t respond to the message. Peridot begs for her fingers to move but she realizes after a moment that they’re gone. Her belongings will likely never be returned, she knows this.

After a few hours of waiting they have finally reached a consensus. Peridot feels her body being eyed just before she’s forced onto a flat table. It’s so cold that her back immediately feels numb. Her head is held particularly still as one of the gems begins to examine her head. Then they bring out the tool, a soft, rotating sander that makes her skin crawl.

Her gem is being drilled. Drilling is a painful process. The holes begin to appear on her limbs, they make a circuit around the outside of her gem, roughing the edges. Her torturer is a machine hanging over her forehead, she can see most of it, but the dust and flecks of Peridot blind her eyes. Tears dribble from either corner of her eye. She sucks in a breath and holds it, not wanting to scream. There’s no sound but the drilling in her skull. It traces words into her gem, “Unwanted, worthless, traitor, useless, dust, cracked, broken.” the tears gather at her eyes. The pain is mental, not physical. Heat gathers in her gem due to the friction, it stings as it wiggles the gem in her flesh. Peridot's eyes roll into the back of her head. Her back strains to pull her away from the torture device.

At the end of her wrists her skin begins to dip, melt, and slowly cave in. The bone underneath her muscles shrink as her gem is injured. The sharp drilling noise only grows into a monstrous cancophy as they dip deeper, digging the worst word into her skull: Exile the tears finally slide down her temples and into her hair.

They’re keeping her arms there, but she knows they’re useless. Only a healing gem could possibly fix her body and gems. She’s worthless. There’s nobody who will help her. She feels the machine stop. A new machine slides next to her, it clamps a claw firmly around her bicep. The pressure is immense against the nerves left raw in the empty hole where her humerus was before. It measures up her arm until it finds the three inch nub, and clips just below it. The machine cauterizes the wound as it slices through her muscle. Things would of gone easier if she had stopped shaking so hard. Peridot can’t stop herself from shivering, every inch of her body tense as the machine makes it’s wicked path. Bit by bit, she is fixed and fitted into a proper exile gem.

They clip off a little of each femur and then seal those as well, each termination being sealed with a cap of flat crystal sunk into her flesh and bone. One of the last steps is a thick coating of silica that feels like it’ll suffocate her. The resin sinks deep into the fissures of her gem and solidifies. Peridot can feel herself seize up at the cold sensation. A bright, pulsating blue light pases over her face and gem to instantly cure the silica. The empty feeling only grows as they pull her from the restraints and hang her on the wall, a loop around her neck and chest hardly clinging to the remnants of her dignity. So she waits, and the tears drip. Peridot is painfully alone in the tight, silent chamber. Realistically, there are likely hundreds of thousands of other gems around her and facing a similar fate. They cannot reach one another, they have all been painfully mutilated in public just as she had been.

She has no idea how much time has passed, only that the minute shocks sent into her gem are some sort of code. The messages tingle and sometimes sear her gem, she realizes that shes being used as a conduit for information. Prisoners are strung up and used for their energy in devices and other things.

Peridot waits, and waits until finally they come for her. She has no idea who picks her up and tosses her down onto the floor so hard that she immediately retreats to her gem. Peridot doesn’t know what planet she’s on when she finally awakens. None of the gems look at her when they take her up into the atmosphere and fling her into the lonely reaches of space.


End file.
